Uzbekistan’s 19-year-old Grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov emerges FIDE World champion
The 19-year-old defeated Wei in the second Rapid Game in the tiebreak with black pieces to become the first Uzbek chess player to win the World Cup
Hyderabad: Uzbekistan’s GM Javokhir Sindarov became the youngest FIDE World Cup 2025 champion after he defeated GM Wei Yi of China in the tiebreak in Panaji on Wednesday.
The 19-year-old defeated Wei in the second Rapid Game in the tiebreak with black pieces to become the first Uzbek chess player to win the World Cup and take home a prize purse of $120,000, along with the newly christened Viswanathan Anand Cup.
The FIDE World Cup 2025 was played as a single-elimination knock-out tournament and witnessed 206 players from 82 countries aiming for glory in a competition, and also three spots in the Candidates 2026.
In the final, Sindarov played out quick draws in the two classical games against Wei and had banked on his Rapid skills to find a way to win against a player who did not lose a single classical game in the competition.
Wei was once again solid with black pieces in the first tiebreaker game, and the only time engines showed that Sindarov had a chance to find a winning sequence was in the bishop-pawn endgame, but his very next move brought the game back in balance.
In the second Rapid Game, Sindarov started exerting pressure on Wei’s king side from the middle game and then pinned his opponent’s king with his queen, doing the damage. The Chinese finally resigned after the 60th move, and the Uzbek became the youngest player to win the World Cup.
“Today, my plan was to stay solid, whether it was 15-15 or 10-10 time control. In the second game, I felt that he was not confident, and it was my time to take chances. My position was tricky, and I even offered him a draw. But he decided to play for a win, but had very little time, and he missed my attack,” said Sindarov after the title triumph.
Asked about how he felt about being the youngest World Cup champion, Sindarov said, “I am very happy about that. But in my view, it is just the start of my career. I want to first be a 2750 player and then play many tournaments and play World Championships. But I am very happy to be here, and I will try to play my best in the Candidates as well.”
Sindarov also spoke about how playing in India has been quite fruitful for him and how India and Uzbekistan could be competing for a lot of honours in the future. “India seems to be bringing a lot of luck. Yes, last time when I was in India, I won the Olympiad. After three years, I have won the World Cup. I’m very happy.”
“India has a lot of very good players, and the younger generation is also coming up too fast. In the next 10 years, we will be fighting a lot for Olympiads and many other tournaments,” he said.
